Remembering 9/11 -- relief became disbelief 16 years ago

Monday marks the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead.

Cody Shepard The Enterprise @cshepard_ENT

Christine Coombs initially felt relieved. She knew her husband, Jeffrey W. Coombs, was flying from Boston to Los Angeles, rather than New York City, when she heard two planes had just crashed into the World Trade Center.

She had dropped him off earlier that morning at the train station so he could get to Logan Airport for a typical three-day business trip.

But that all changed when she received a phone call from American Airlines that her husband was on the passenger list for Flight 11, which had been hijacked by terrorists and diverted toward one of the tallest buildings in the world.

Jeffrey Coombs was one of 92 people aboard that flight on Sept. 11, 2001. All of them died.

“The anniversary is something that just brings it out to the forefront for everyone else,” Christine Coombs told The Enterprise. “We want people to remember, definitely, but it makes it difficult for us. The last thing we want is for our loved one’s memories to just fade off into the distance.”

There’s one place in particular where the victims killed in the attacks will never be forgotten.

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum bears the names of all the victims of the attacks, which occurred 16 years ago to the day. The memorial has the names of all people killed in the terror attacks, as well as six from the bombing at the World Trade Center in 1993. The memorial, which was dedicated on the 10th anniversary, consists of two reflecting pools with names around the edges. The memorial opened in 2014.

Jeffrey Coombs is one of the names on the memorial.

“The first time I saw Jeff’s name on there, it was heartbreaking. It really cut me to the core. I just kept running my hand over his name,” Christine Coombs said. “Every time anyone I know visits now, whether they’re a close friend, family or even a co-worker, they always say they look for Jeff’s name and, by some strange coincidence, there it is.”

Christine Coombs receives photos of her husband’s name frequently from people who visit the memorial. One of those text messages in the past was from Mary Hickey, an Abington resident who grew close to Christine Coombs following her husband’s death.

Hickey first visited the memorial several years ago while on her way back from a wedding in Maryland.

“I texted Christie to find out where it was written to get my bearing as to where I was,” she said. “When I saw it, it was moving.”

Hickey visited again a few years later, when the museum had opened, and felt even more overwhelmed.

“That was just breath-taking,” she said. “Three-quarters of the way through, I was just emotionally distraught. The museum was amazing.”

That was Liz Pretorius’ impression of it as well. The Whitman woman visits New York City every year to see family and has been to the memorial twice.

“It’s very emotional standing there and remembering what happened on that day,” she said. “You look in and then you look up and remember. The design is perfect and simple, but large, which adds to the profound sense of the enormity of that horrific, senseless day.”

Ronda Poole Guerreiro, a Brockton native who now lives in Swansea, called the memorial and museum “absolutely amazing.”

“The thought behind the designs and every single detail – there are just no words,” she said. “What an incredible tribute to all that lost their lives on that tragic day.”

While many Brockton-area residents hold onto memories from New York City at home, there’s a piece of the region that has stayed in the Big Apple as a result of the tragic events.

Several local law enforcement officials, particularly firefighters, went down to help in the aftermath of the terror attacks. Stoughton sent a pair of firefighters – one on a critical incident team and the other for psychological counseling to rescue workers – and at least nine firefighters from Plymouth County went, including one each from Whitman and Bridgewater.

Those departments have since left police and fire patches in New York at O’Hara’s Pub Restaurant Bar, which is across the street from the memorial and monument site. The Stoughton Fire Dept. patch hangs visibly above the bar, which features hundreds of patches from departments who responded in wake of the attacks.

Sixteen years later, Sept. 11, 2001, remains a vivid memory for many. Most people can even still say where they were when the planes hit the Twin Towers.

For Christine Coombs, seeing the images associated with the events – especially the planes hitting the towers – is hard.

“By having it on the news, it’s important. But the pictures they show are of the planes flying into the towers and the explosions. That’s hard to see, because, in my case, that’s my husband’s death,” she said. “The anniversary is in many ways like any other day. But, in some ways, it brings it all back home.”

The biggest thing Christine Coombs says she has taken from this tragedy is to help others. That’s why every Sept. 11 she uses it as a day of service. She helps create care packages for soldiers through the 9/11 Service Project on what is now known as a national day of service.

“Use Monday to participate in some community service activity. Come to the Greenway in Boston, do a random act of kindness by buying someone a cup of coffee or just be kind to someone,” she said. “Do anything that lets somebody know you’re thinking of them, that’s how we want to remember this day.”